


In The Hearts of Men

by twimatt



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Letter, Potential trigger warning, Sob Story, Ultimate sobbing ensume
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 20:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1278040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twimatt/pseuds/twimatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post BoFA, everybody lives. Bilbo is back safe at Bag End, and the escorting company of dwarfes are on their way back to Erebor, but Thorin can't handle his feelings or his guilt anymore, so he sits down and writes a letter to Bilbo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Hearts of Men

**Author's Note:**

> First inspired by the song that also provided the title 'In The Hearts of Men' by First Aid Kit. Later on the song 'Guilt' by Hurts was added to inspiration, as it fitted to the story very well. Please listen to both these songs when reading if you wish. Will warn you that it might not help brighten your mood though. 
> 
> I actually wrote nearly all of this letter on the 24th of December, which is the day we celebrate Christmas up here in Scandinavia. I was all surrounded by family I love and while I wasn't in the brightest of moods, I wasn't unhappy, yet this thing came out oh dear.  
> Anyways, I'm babbling. There will be another part, but if you want to keep the open ending from this part, don't read the second part.
> 
> Massive thanks to Thekeyholder for lending me her beta skills and for letting me cause her so much emotional pain <3

A short man sits on the ground, legs folded and his back resting against an ancient oak, its branches reaching proudly up towards the sky. Bright moonlight illuminates the strokes of silver in his otherwise dark hair. He balances in his lap a flat piece of wood with parchment and a small bottle of ink on it, the moonlight his only source of light. Dipping a sharpened goose feather in the ink, he begins to write.

_My dear Bilbo._

_How will I even begin to tell you how much I adore and love you? How your smile lights up my world, and compels me to smile back, or how your laughter fills me with sheer joy? Even your often stupid comments make my insides warm with tenderness._

_I apologize for being so cold and distant to you when we first met, but I couldn’t imagine that a simple hobbit could be any good._

_But you Bilbo, you have proved me wrong over and over again. I often send silent thanks to Gandalf for finding you, and choosing you to be the fourteenth member of our company. In this aftermath I cannot name any other man, dwarf, elf or hobbit who I’d rather wanted to join us on this cursed journey._

_It has been hard on us all; we both know that. I have been trying to be strong enough for all of us, and I’d like to believe that I succeeded in it. But I am so tired, Bilbo. I cannot take it anymore. For the second time in my life, I give up._

_I do not want you to believe this is your fault in any way. It is not. You are the sole reason why I was able to keep going on this far._

_I think the last drop was the battle, seeing all those people around me fall; see my kin and family die. I was so afraid, Bilbo. Afraid that I would die there, the last dwarf standing, and have every death on my conscience. I brought them all there. I killed them all with my foolishness and greed._

_No, that was not the last drop. The last drop was when I realised that my greed nearly killed you, my first real love. Balin warned me outside the mountain, you know. He warned me about the greed and sickness that had blinded my grandfather, and he saw the same greed and sickness luring inside me. I snapped at him, like he was nothing. I couldn’t dare to face the truth._

_You warned me too. Inside the mountain, after I had come for you, you said we had to get out. I refused and look where it led us. Split up with Smaug attacking Lake Town, killing even more people. I do not know their faces, but they still haunt me in my sleep. Everyone who died in this quest. Every night, with no exception._

_I treated you so horribly, and then I pushed you away. I know you thought it had to do with the Arkenstone, but you are wrong there. I pushed you away so I would not be able to hurt you anymore. In hindsight it probably hurt us more as time went by, but I was scared, Bilbo. Scared, that even away from the gold, the dragon sickness would still take my mind and make me hurt you again. And yet I could not let you go. I went with the party home so I could see you a little longer, catch the smell of your skin or hair in a breeze drifting my way and see the confident glitter in your eyes, just one more time._

_You are my saviour, but you are also another disease. I am free from the gold sickness, but I am addicted to you. I want you by my side all the time, but I cannot leave Erebor, just as you cannot stay there. You would be an old hobbit by the time I could resign from my duties, might even be forever gone. I cannot handle that thought, not now, not ever. So I am ending it now._

_I feel guilty for leaving Fíli, all this responsibility like this, but Dis can help him until he is ready. She will make a good ruler out of him and I think it would be good for Erebor – the new Erebor – to have a youthful and inventive mind on the throne. Someone who will not do everything to restore Erebor to its former glory, because look what that glory led us to._

_My apologies, I am rambling, doing exactly what I did not want to do in this letter._

_I am not a very talkactive person. I have always been raised as a man of action, but in the written word, I can go on and on._

The man pauses in his writing, closing his eyes and remembers the fine looks of the hobbit who’s the addressee of his letter. Sometimes, when sleep would not gift him with its presence, he would watch the hobbit sleep. The peaceful features had a calming effect on his stormy mind. Bilbo would sleep soundly under his blankets, and a few strands of his curly hair - which has grown longer and wilder during their journey back home to the Shire – would constantly fall over his face.

A cold breeze drifts through the camp. Despite wearing thick clothes, the man shudders when the breeze hits the tree he’s sitting against.

With a sad smile, the man returns to his letter.

_I will tell you a secret, one that none other than my beloved sister Dis and perhaps Balin knows. Ever since I learned how to read and write, I have kept diaries. There are so many now. I have lived a long life, and, as I said before, I can be a very talkative person in the written word._

_Here is another secret; they are all in the bottom of your treasure chest, hidden behind a small lock._

_If you want to remember me when the years have gone by and the memory starts to fade, they will be in your possession unless you throw them away in rage or sell them for money, but none of these things sounds like you._

_This adventure has been great. I cannot thank you enough for agreeing to be our burglar, for taking care of us when my stubbornness put us all in danger, neither can I apologize enough for hurting you so._

_But we both know, do we not? All good things must end. This is my end._

_I love you._

_Please do not hate me._

_Yours forever,_

_In heart and mind,_

_Thorin_

The dwarf puts a plug in the ink bottle, and carefully blows at the parchment, willing the ink to dry faster. He’s ready now.

When the ink has dried fully, he folds the letter and carefully puts it in Balin’s backpack along with a smaller note to Balin and the boys, in the outer pocket, securing it so the wind won’t get hold of it.

He casts a last look at his company; the five dwarfs who had volunteered to follow Bilbo safely back to the Shire. In all honesty, all members of the original company had volunteered, but many of them were needed in Erebor. He casts another long last look to the west where his own burglar - lover – is finally sleeping in his own bed before walking into the night, his steps heavy with grief.


End file.
